"You're a Nobody When you're Unemployed": Exploring the Content of Unemployed People's Stereotype
Résumé
Previous research has shown that unemployed people bear a stigma that builds on the stereotype of "the unemployed" and is associated with many adverse individual and collective outcomes. Several studies have described their stereotype and compared it to other groups, but none has done so using the dimensions and facets of the most recent integrated framework of stereotypes. In Study 1 among university students (n = 241), we show that unemployed people are rated lower than employed people on the horizontal and the vertical dimensions of their stereotypes, as well as on the facets of capacity, assertiveness, morality and friendliness. In addition, we also show that unemployed people are also rated the lowest when compared to a high-high occupation (firefighters) and a low-low occupation (railroad workers). In study 2, we replicate and extend these findings with university students (n = 193) and show that unemployed people are also blatantly dehumanized when compared to the same target of employed people and to the same high-high and low-low occupations. In Study 3, we show that vocational integration workers (n = 123) also rate unemployed people lower than employed people on the horizontal and the vertical dimensions, as well as on the capacity, assertiveness and friendliness facets but not on morality. Overall, we conclude that unemployed people have a highly destructive stereotype that is lacking in every dimension and facet, that they are overly despised and that unemployment is so disregarded that not having a job is considered worse than having a devalued job.

